From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com

The Internet, and especially the increasingly monopolistic Amazon, are eroding much of the traditional bricks and mortar stores. But, as I learned from my silver jewelry-making daughter in New York City, “pop-up stores’’ – short-term retail outlets in rental storefronts -- provide new ways of showing and selling stuff.

They speak to the desire of many, perhaps most customers to touch, see and even smell goods in a real place. For that matter, even Amazon is opening brick-and-mortar stores.

Local zoning regulations may have to be changed in some places to encourage the creation of pop-up stores, which sure are better than vacant storefronts. I think that these outlets would do best in already busy upscale shopping streets, such as Bellevue Avenue, in Newport, Newbury Street, in Boston, and Thayer Street and Wayland Square, on the East Side of Providence. Such temporary outlets would seem particularly handy for test-showing new products.